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ASUS's Xonar sound card product line launched a shock bomb to the entire audio and music appreciation market in 2012, launching ASUS's first digital streaming appreciation-grade external plug-in The Xonar Essence One external digital all-in-one audio equipment has won praises from many professional audio users at home and abroad for its ultra-high-end audio chip, complete digital input interface and highly flexible tuning possibilities.
However, in a previous interview with the Essense One development team, they revealed that the tuning of Essense One is mainly neutral, but they still have some own ideas about the tuning of Essense One, and some It is planned to launch a special version of Essense One; and after repeatedly confirming with audio-grade amplification chip manufacturers that high-end OP chips can be supplied in sufficient quantities, a special tuning version based on Essence One is finally launched this year: Essense One MUSE Edition.
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The so-called MUSE Edition refers to the replacement of the TI NE5532 OP originally used for IV and LPF amplification by New Japan Wireless (NJR) supplies 6 high unit price OP chips JRC MUSE 01. The price of this chip in the market is as high as 30 US dollars. The general retail price in Taiwan is about NT$1,800. Six of them were replaced in one go to replace the original retail price. The NE5532, which costs tens of yuan, also means that the cost alone has increased by nearly ten thousand yuan.
However, before introducing the listening experience of Essense One MUSE Edition, let’s start with the design and hardware of this product. The design of the Essense One MUSE Edition continues from the standard Essence One, with only the OP part upgraded; the difference in appearance from the ordinary Essense One is that the tiger-shaped totem on the top of the phone has changed from gold to black.
From left to right on the front are switches, Upsampling, source selection, mute, Line Out volume, ear amplifier volume, as well as source indicator light, mute indicator light, sampling rate indicator light and 6.3 Headphone slot.
There is a dotted line on the back of the machine that divides the rear terminals into output and input. The output terminals are RCA and balanced output. Especially balanced output is available for those who have high-end audio amplifiers or headphones with balanced terminals at home. Better listening quality; the input terminals are not just digital streams, they are all digital terminals, including coaxial, optical and USB, which also means that the Essense One series cannot be used simply as an ear amplifier or preamplifier.
The chassis of Essense One is made of thick aluminum alloy. You only need to remove *** 10 screws on the front and back of the machine to pull out the board from the front. The DAC of Essense One is from two TI The biggest feature of PCM1795 is its sampling capability of up to 32bit 192kHz. It is also one of the few DAC chips on the market that supports 32bit. The advantage of using dual PCM1795 is that it can obtain a better signal-to-noise ratio than a single chip, which is better than many DAC chips on the market. The DAC worth NT$30,000 is better and can reach 120dB.
The capacitor part, which is closely related to sound quality, also uses audio-grade German audio-grade WIMA film capacitors; in addition, the circuit board design uses up to 8 layers of circuits, and isolates digital and analog lines, leaving a grounding design in the middle , can have better anti-interference ability than ordinary traditional audio circuits.
The power supply does not require an external transformer. It is built directly into the chassis and uses a high-quality toroidal transformer (according to Pulang readers, generally affordable audio equipment often uses relatively low-priced toroidal transformers. Lower EI transformer), and the ASUS team also said at the time that players are welcome to replace it with a higher-end toroidal transformer if they have the ability, but this should only be done by enthusiast players.
Essense One can provide up to 8 times sampling and upconversion technology. Through digital correction of DSP, the original distorted digital audio can be recalculated, making the music quality closer to the original file; but there are things to note However, upscaling technology still cannot improve the listening experience of over-compressed low-quality music files. Likewise, MP3 files that are lower than 192k quality will only show poor file quality after upconversion.
In addition, in the USB part, Essense One provides asynchronous transmission technology. Asynchronous technology adds signals to confirm signal integrity during the file transmission process. Compared with the general transmission without adding detection signals, mode, although the music playback will not be real-time, it can avoid the loss of audio details due to the interference of clock jitter during the digital signal transmission process, making music listening more ideal.
Essense One also supports audiophile-grade ASIO drivers originally used for recording. By using this driver with playback software that can mount this driver, and pressing the Upsampling button on the front panel, you can skip the original Interference from the operating system causes sampling to drop, allowing music playback to be performed directly by ASIO for an optimized playback and listening experience.
Returning to the most soulful part of Essense One MUSE Edition, the original Essence One has 11 OP ***s, and the MUSE version maintains the two high-dynamic, low-distortion NSs originally used for headphone amplification ( Now acquired by TI) LME49600 and low-distortion NS LM4562NA for balanced/unbalanced buffering have not been replaced. Both of these chips are known for their purity and high restoration.
Originally, the IV and LPF amplification used the NE5532, which is regarded as the standard in the audio industry. This chip was indeed not bad when it was produced by Philips in the early days, but the current TI version is really just a usable grade. In the past, consumers would criticize Essense One as "not delicate enough" and "the sound is less personalized". Although Essense One used an easily replaceable OP seat from the beginning for players to change by themselves, choosing an OP is really a big question. , it is too troublesome for players who just want to simply listen to music.
The JRC MUSE 01 chip equipped with Essense One MUSE Edition this time is one of the few high-specification OP chips designed for audiophile-level audio appreciation in recent years; although from the official specifications, the data of this chip There is nothing outstanding about it, but audio is originally a metaphysics, and many details cannot be seen from the specifications and data alone.
MUSE 01 This analog OP uses rare high-purity oxygen-free copper circuits internally, and through unique packaging and wiring, interference is reduced as much as possible, with high restoration, balanced sound field and soft sound. Characteristics: The mellow charm of the human voice is what most people have heard of MUSE 01. Is the Essense One MUSE Edition that uses six MUSE 01s in one breath really better?
The author’s next listening test is based on the home version of Beyerdynamic DT880 250 ohm as the benchmark, and uses the standard version of Essense One as the control group, using the included USB cable and standard power cable, and the playback software is Foobar 2000 V1.1.5, listen with ASIO and WASAPI, the differences between the two drivers will be introduced at the end.
The standard Esseense One has a very clean listening experience. The overall sound field is broad and the vocals are moderate. However, the sound can be felt to be slightly rough and lacking in charm. It just faithfully conveys the music itself. After switching to the MUSE Edition, the wide sound field has not changed, but the vocals are much more condensed, and the mid-range is no longer full of so-called "electronic sounds" like the regular version. It has a thickness and charm similar to that of early analog speakers, but the resolution is instead Better than the standard version, but the low frequency seems to be weaker and looser than the standard version.
It can be said that MUSE Edition retains, or even improves, the analytical power while adding flavor to the music itself, so that Essense One does not become a monster that overemphasizes detail restoration but loses the pleasure of listening. However, The author thinks that the tuning of the MUSE Edition is more focused on the charm of the human voice. For some music that emphasizes momentum, it is a pity due to the low-frequency performance, but it is also possible that the machine has not yet finished running in.
As for the driver part, the author personally used the same music for cross-comparison. The ASIO sound is softer, but if bit Perfect is not used, it lacks some low-frequency power; as for whether there is a WASAPI driver The difference is less obvious when using bit Perfect, but compared to the ASIO driver, the sound is sharper. In terms of personal preference, I slightly prefer WASAPI, but I don't deny that ASIO is more suitable for purely listening to human voices. This part belongs to personal listening experience, and it may not be slightly different from your listening experience.
It is commendable that ASUS’s engineering team is very attentive. In the past, the ear expansion part of all-in-one products of this level, especially some emerging brands or mainland brands, did not handle the boot protection well. , but the Essense One series, which emphasizes high thrust, will not make a popping sound when the instantaneous current passes through when it is turned on, which can prevent the earphones from burning out due to excessive current at the instant of turning on.
The author also tried to use the built-in ALC888 in the computer with the 24bit optical fiber output to decode the beast box with the WASAPI driver. The Audio-Technica fiber optic cable was used as the medium in the middle. The sound will be thinner, compared to It's a little cooler to use the same WASAPI driver for USB.
In addition, a friend of the author also provided an IeGO power cord for cross-testing. The conclusion is... If you can buy Essence One Muse Edition, don’t use the included power cord. The USB cable inside is not the same as the power supply. The cable is really just for consumers to confirm whether they have bought a faulty product. Investing in better-isolated power cables and USB cables can still give you a significant sense of upgrade.
However, I still have to talk about the troublesome part of the Essense One series. It is that the gain value set by the ear amplifier is too high, and the gain cannot be reduced. This also means that Essense One is not suitable for modern low-impedance headphones (not Including monsters like AKG K701, K702 or Bayer DT48e) all have the problem of difficult to control the volume.
The new generation of low-impedance headphones I use such as Sony MDR-1, Z1000 and Philips X1 all have the problem of overload sound pressure, not to mention most ear canal headphones. And because the VR of Essense One has different levels, when paired with MDR-1, I found a level that is slightly louder than usual and has a lower sound pressure. When going to the next level, not only is the volume insufficient for an instant, but also the left and right volume will occur. Uneven (Note: This is a common problem in most ears when the volume is amplified).
The author’s personal suggestion is to focus on headphone systems. It is not recommended to use recent headphones with low impedance below 100 ohms, especially closed-back designs. It is better to choose headphone products with 250 ohms or above to achieve an ideal listening experience; Of course, there will be fewer problems with the matching of several former flagships or renovated high-end headphones that continue the previous design, such as AKG K701, K702 and Q701, Beyerdynamatic DT770, DT880 and DT990, Sennheiser HD600, HD650, etc. Of course, several recent high-end headphones There is no trouble with sound pressure and volume control when paired with impedance flagship headphones.
However, how to match the ideal sound still depends on personal preference. However, the author’s impression of pairing it with DT880 is not bad. Essense One MUSE Edition can maintain the existing sound field of DT880 (but the innate relationship is not the same). It may be as wide as the DT990 or AKG series headphones), and it makes up for the slightly recessed mid-range of the DT880, adding to the atmosphere of listening to female solos and jazz that are dominated by human voices. However, because the low frequency is slightly scattered and the overall speed is not as fast as the regular version of Essense One, you will feel that something is missing when listening to pop music, especially electronic music.
Essense One is originally a body with good physical properties. However, when it was launched, considering the price and the difficulty of obtaining high-end OPs, we only chose conservative and affordable OPs, although some of them were capable of tuning. It is not a big problem for players to replace these OPs, but some players who just want to enjoy music will kill Zhongliang by mistake because they don't know how to tune or simply don't know that Essense One can tune.
Originally, listening to music is very subjective, and I dare not say that Essense One MUSE Edition brings Essense One to its fullest, but it is undeniable that with the support of high-end OP, Essense One MUSE Edition only has analytical capabilities. It is a significant improvement and also gives Essense One the emotional charm that it originally lacked. MUSE OP and Essense One are like a combination of beauty and the beast, retaining strong detail analysis but adding a gentle and graceful touch.